463 The Sunnyside Crab

463 The Sunnyside Crab

"I'm not President Bush, if you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." Catchy line from John McCain at the third and final presidential debate.

It's good, but it's no "...you're no Jack Kennedy," which Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle in 1988, immediately establishing the gold standard for debate one-liners, which has yet to be equaled.

Other than that, McCain sounded like he was running for County Supervisor, while Barrack Obama sounded like he was running for President. And Obama wasn't even at the top of his form in this latest trouncing.

The best McCain can hope for now is a huge sympathy vote, because no one's going to vote for his positions on issues -- if they can figure out what they really are that week -- unless they're voting for a County Supervisor.

Obama refused to get into the gutter with McCain about degrees of nastiness, guilt by association and the like. All he did was mention that it wasn't cool for McCain's lunatic fringe supporters to be labeling him a terrorist or threatening to murder him. Grace under pressure, to invoke Kennedy for the second time in few words.

When the Democrats call McCain "unstable" do they mean he keeps lurching from pillar to post, can't seem to focus on anything meaningful and is getting crankier and his movements more erratic and jerkier by the day? Or do they mean the guy belongs in a rubber room somewhere where he can't harm himself or others? Depends on whether you can read their minds, but for public consumption, be sure the latter is (mostly) out.

Back in Sunnyside, Queens, we used to call guys like McCain "crabs," because they were always chasing you off their property or angry at your dog because some other dog used their sidewalk as a bathroom even if you cleaned up after it, or because they just didn't like people.

Those same crabs seemed to assume that others were out to get them. They cast sideways glances at such threatening figures as the letter carrier, the sanitation worker and the Good Humor Man. And when no one else locked their doors -- the crabs did. (And yes, there was a time when New Yorkers, at least in the outer boroughs, did not always lock their doors!)

John McCain is a Sunnyside crab.


Shrapnel:

--Turns out "Joe the Plumber" of presidential debate fame doesn't have a license. Right on, Joey, you don't want the gummint to dictate who can and cannot do which work. Are you listening, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, barbers, makeup artists, civil engineers and airline pilots?


--Social Security payments are going up next year. Almost six percent, pretty healthy by today's standards. How many of the guys who fear we're getting too socialist will turn back their increases, do you think?

--They're working on an environmentally advanced wind-up refrigerator. Uses no electricity. Small problem: it doesn't keep food cold, either.


I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.(r)
(C)WJR 2008